CDC Warns People: STOP Eating Your Placenta!!

These past years, there’s a rather odd trend among stars to eat their own placenta after giving birth. Among them are Kim and Kourtney Kardashian and also X-Men: First Class actress January Jones.

Even though there is no proof that eating your placenta has any health benefits, the idea has actually gone bizarrely mainstream, with so many people posting videos on YouTube on how to prepare placenta, cook it, or even turn it into a milkshake.

For those individuals who would like to try this bizarre trend, without preparing their own “homemade” placenta, there are also companies that will turn human placenta into capsules and then you can consume it (once again, for no apparent medical benefit) in a convenient pill form.

Nevertheless, we are here to tell you that a report from the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention (CDC) is now informing people that not only is consuming your placenta pointless, it might also be harmful for your child. In the report, the CDC states that health authorities think placenta pills might have caused an infection in a baby in Portland, Oregon.

The mom had her placenta turned into tablets by a company she believed to be safe. How this process goes is they take the placenta, clean and dehydrate it, and after that grind it down before putting it into capsules. Nevertheless, after taking the capsules, her child got sick. Medical professionals could not understand what was wrong with the child until the mother told them that she decided to eat her placenta after birth.

The capsules were tested, and was actually found that they contain infectious bacteria within the placenta itself. The CDC thinks that the company may not have heated the placenta enough to exterminate the bacteria, prior to they shipped it back to the mother.

Thankfully, the child got better after receiving prescription antibiotics, however the CDC is warning people that there are no health benefits to eating your own placenta. In fact, they warn to avoid this bizarre new trend altogether.

“Placenta intake has recently been promoted to postpartum women for its physical and mental benefits, although there is no scientific proof to support this,” the center warns in its report. They point out, “No standards exist for processing placenta for consumption,” implying there are no regulations to ensure safety.
“The placenta encapsulation process does not per se eradicate infectious pathogens; hence, placenta capsule consumption should be avoided.”